The first-ever National Farm to School Conference is on in Victoria, B.C. this week.

Organizer and National Director of Farm to Cafeteria Canada, Joanne Bays, says there's a huge movement to improve student nutrition.

"On the one hand, there's so many students coming to school who are food insecure or hungry. The only issue that outpaces that one, is the number of kids coming to school who are obese and are overweight."

Bays says her organization's mission is to bring healthy, local, sustainable food into schools.

She says the conference is a place to bring awareness to these types of programs which already exist.

"Celebrate all of innovations, the different models, the different ways we're getting food from the field," she said. "Then all of the different ways that we're dealing with it once it gets into the institution."

Bays says there's a big movement in public policy to bring the farm to public institutions.

She says they'll launch consultations at the conference to create a framework to collect data in order to show policy makers their work is feasible.

The Conference started on Wednesday, May 15 and wraps up Friday, May 17.

To learn more about Farm to Cafeteria Canada, you can visit their website.

 

Send your news tips, story ideas and comments to jgiles@goldenwestradio.com

Follow on Twitter @GoldenWestABAg @JessicaR_Giles